


Mindless

by GrimLegate



Series: Requiems For Tomorrow [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Cuddling, Developing Relationship, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimLegate/pseuds/GrimLegate
Summary: Soothing touches are the only balm that he can offer for the other's suffering soul.





	Mindless

He compares with worry, the difference in the color of their skin. The pallid tone stands out all the more starkly, as his thumb brushes against the back of the other’s hand. Normally, the man before him was the darker of the pair, skin olive toned and pulled taut over muscles from years of hard work. Now, he seems so dark in comparison, and the skin before him seems so sallow, so stretched thin.

He glances to the man’s face, a gently hard carding through the silver locks that frame his sharp features. He allows himself a moment, basking in the gentle touch that he is allowed to offer in this moment of vulnerability. His palm rests gently along the arch of his cheekbone, and Rhitaas’ ears tuck sharply against his head as he gazes at his companions face.

There is nothing more that he can offer him, besides these gentle, reassuring touches, to stand guard over his bed, acting as a sentinel. The energy to coax healing magicks from the aether surrounding him has run dry, and his astrologian’s globe rests useless at the floor against his feet. He had been tempted to gaze at the cards, to match them to the celestial bodies above, but the nights had been fruitless, with clouds covering the sky, leaving him naught but with questions and the gentle respite of Estinien’s breathing to lull him.

His thumb runs in circles over the back of the man’s hand, brushing over the knuckles leading to those long, nimble fingers. The back of his hand is smooth, devoid of the callouses that Rhitaas knows that he would find should he flip the hand over. He takes in the texture, bumping over the veins that crisscross just beneath the surface, a pale blue beneath his skin.

He wishes that the other would open his eyes. A shiver runs up his spine, and he remembers with startling clarity the last time that he had seen into the dragoon’s eyes. His voice had spat venom with every word that the beast had pulled from his lips, and his eyes burned with a rage that had lit every nerve of his on _fire_ – had sent the Echo into a frenzied panic, howling danger, _danger, DANGER._

Those eyes had skittered in his skull, frenzied and furious, snarling at the silver-armored figure that had the _gall_ to walk before him, as if this _puny_ mortal had no _earthly_ idea who he was. The last time he had seen his eyes, they had begged for the gift of mercy, for Rhitaas to spare him the sight of more bloodshed, to run him through upon his lance and to end the wyrm’s hateful legacy.

Instead, they had prized those venomous eyes from where they had dug into Estinien’s skin and hurled them into the Sea of Clouds.

His thumb continues skirting over the skin, rubbing little warmth into the fingers as his eyes try to seek out the hidden gaze of the dragoon. Theirs’ was a strange relationship, how two aching hearts had picked out one another out of the snowy expanse before them, had danced around one another until they had met at the center, with some sort of compromise between the two. It had driven their companions mad, seeing the two of them skirting around, painfully obvious what the other had wanted.

Of course, Estinien had reacted almost violently at the realization of his feelings, though Rhitaas now understood why. In the moment where he held both of the eyes in his hands, he had listened to Estinien breathe a sigh of relief, and that had been when Nidhogg had struck.

To watch his love fly away on blackened wings of vengeance gouged at his already empty, wanting heart. The assaults that the Warrior had been present for all made sense now, to know that they were all in his presence, that he may have caused them, just by the simple act of being near Estinien and giving him some hope for love and care and something beyond the seething hatred he had felt for so many years…

Rhitaas felt guilty, for all the pain he had caused him.

His thumb had ceased its ministrations, and Rhitaas sat silently at the man’s bedside, still as a statue, a frown tugging at his lips. So entranced by his thoughts, he missed the sight of a stormy grey eye cracking open, before shutting once more, and a deep voice grousing.

“Why did you stop?”

It was rough, gravely and hoarse from disuse, and Rhitaas nearly missed entirely who’s voice it might have been. But his head snapped up, staring at the man in front of him ears pushed up and forward.

“E-Estinien?”

“What? No more of that insipid nickname?”

Estinien winced, his voice coming out rougher, sharper than he had intended. But if the miqo’te took offense to it, it didn’t show, and something foreign ached in the elezen’s chest when he saw the tears begin to leak over the other’s cheeks. A wet sob left his chest, and Rhitaas clenched the hand he had been holding tightly, pulling it up and rubbing his cheek into it.

He was used to the slivers of pupil that the other normally had, but his pupils nearly eclipsed the lavender of his iris, and Estinien gently moved his hand to cup the other’s face. His body aches, and he is pointedly aware of the none-too gentle ass-kicking that he had received from the other Azure Dragoon, but nothing hurts him more than the icy dagger that slices at his heart strings to watch the other’s anguish.

“I thought… I thought I had _lost_ you.” He whimpers, and Estinien has never heard a sadder sound in his life. This man in front of him seems so far from the vaunted Warrior of Light, the same one he had faced down on the Steps of Faith, where vengeance and rage had fettered him to the dragon’s will.

The bags under his eyes are dark, nearly blotting out the markings beneath them. His hair and fur are in disarray, and he hunches over as though he has lived in the chair by his bedside.

And when he spots the healing instrument by the other’s feet, he doesn’t doubt that the other had.

Estinien curls his fingers against the other’s face, as the man clings to his arm, eyes squeezed shut as tears continue to leak from them. He manages to shuffle up on one elbow, pressing his back to the headboard and he pulls the arm that Rhitaas has attached himself to.

The _hurt_ that reflects back into his eyes nearly rends his heart from his chest, and he brings his other hand to gently tug upon the other’s shirt.

“Come ‘ere.” He grumbles, tugging once more when the other hesitates for but a moment. Estinien’s grip slips down the other as this man, who he has seen bite and snarl and gouge at his enemies, plucks himself over the other with a feather-light gentleness. How funny, Estinien thinks, that this Weapon, this finely-tuned creature before him, who’s put his ass into the dirt on more than one occasion now, treats him as if one wrong move will break him.

Well, maybe now, in his sickbed, it would.

Thankfully, the other is light.

Rhitaas only lowers himself at Estinien’s behest, to have the other curled partially atop him, with his messy locks tickling the underside of Estinien’s chin. One hand smooths over the other’s back, while his sobs continue to wrack in his chest, an ear pressed none-too gently to the elezen’s heart, to remind him that the other was still there.

That he was very much alive.

There is much he wants to say, but even just the tiniest movements he made, and willing his voice to bring his thoughts to bare took every onze of energy that he had left. There’s so much the two of them need to speak of, to right wrongs from before, to allow each of them the opportunity to truly _feel_. His fingers soothe and rub at the other’s back, and his other hand finds itself captive once more by the miqo’te’s ministrations.

Less than half a bell passes, and Estinien finds that the shuddering sobs that wrenched his heart had all-but dissipated, and the unsure beginning of a purr rumbled against his chest. He chances a peek, but Rhitaas’ eyes are shut, his forehead tucked neatly against him, and Estinien can feel the slow circle rubbed into his palm stutter and then cease.

He finds his thoughts are strangely quiet, without the influence of Nidhogg snarling at the cage that the other had put him in. The bars that held him are hot to the touch, and the metal is shorn, razor sharp, and Estinien knows he will have to show care to not cut himself on those wicked emotions. But, for now, he looks down at the sleeping form of his first love, and something aches within his heart, and he cannot stop himself from brushing his lips against the other’s ear, smothering a bemused laughter when the furry appendage flicks at the touch.

He settles back against the headboard, knowing he will probably catch multitudes of hell from Aymeric and the chirurgeons over something so small, but the purring that rings in his ears makes him inclined to really not give a damn.


End file.
